BNP Paribas did not escape Monday’s broad sell-off of European banking shares. This was in spite of its opportunistic weekend swoop on the Belgian and Luxembourg assets of Fortis, transforming the French bank into the eurozone’s biggest in terms of deposits.

Many BNP rivals would grudgingly have to agree the Belgian deal clinched by BNP’s chairman Michel Pébéreau and its chief executive Baudouin Prot seems pretty smart. In theory, at least, it is a dream acquisition – a relative bargain using the bank’s own shares and limiting its cash outlay, with cast-iron guarantees from Belgium and Luxembourg and these two governments as stable shareholders with every interest to ensure the long-term success of the deal.